Can Kartini Be Lesbian? Identity, Gender, and Sexual Orientation in a Post-Suharto Pop Novel

Abstract

AbstractThe British author Martin Amis once remarked that “the way a writer names his characters provides a good index to the way he sees the world—to his reality-level, his responsiveness to the accidental humour and freakish poetry of life” (Amis Amis, The moronic inferno and other visits to America, Penguin, London, 1987, p. 13). If this is so, what, then, does the choice of the name Kartini for the protagonist in the 2007 pop novel Kembang Kertas (Paper Flowers) by the Indonesian woman writer Eni Martini with the provocative subtitle Ijinkan aku menjadi lesbian (Allow me to be lesbian) tell us about the way she appropriates the iconic feministfigure of Kartini who lived from 1879 to 1904? This essay explores how the Kartini image as a model of the ideal Indonesian woman is creatively refigured in this 21st-century expression of Indonesian popular culture and how the new post-colonial avatar is deployed to address problematics of gender, shame, and sexual orientation. The question arises as to the analogy between the emblematic Kartini, revered in Indonesia as the epitome of perfect heterosexual femininity, and the new-fangled Kartini figure in fictional form.